Right place, right time.

When the COVID-19 pandemic first hit in 2020, it thrust the online learning industry straight into the global spotlight.

Companies were forced to pivot to keep remote employees engaged, while schools scrambled to find ways to recreate the classroom experience online.

Nearly two years later, we are continuing to see lasting — and likely permanent — effects. Online learning is no longer a novel concept, but now a critical tool for primary and secondary education, corporate L&D, employee onboarding, and professional development.

At Maven, we invested most of 2020 designing a best-in-class online learning platform and hiring a world-class team of instructors, designers, and developers to bring it to life.

This positioned us perfectly to pour some fuel on the fire in 2021, and focus on growing our community, evolving our product, launching new content, and establishing the Maven Analytics brand as the leader in online data analytics & BI training.

👇 Let's review some of the highlights 👇

✓ Massive community growth

In early 2021 we devised a ridiculously simple strategy for audience growth: share valuable content and limit the salesy stuff.

As a result, we increased our LinkedIn followers by 10x, quadrupled our student base, landed 20 new enterprise training teams, and created a space where current and aspiring analytics professionals can connect and collaborate with each other.

Plus it was WAY more fun than writing ad copy and cold-calling prospects :)

We also launched 10 data playground challenges in 2021 and received an astounding 1,500+ submissions from participants around the world, who analyzed everything from chess moves to marketing campaigns, toy sales, Olympic games, restaurant reviews, taxi trips, basketball stats, property listings, crowdfunding campaigns, and even dialogues from the entire Harry Potter film series.

These challenges gave participants an opportunity to showcase their skills, build portfolio projects, share and solicit feedback, and connect with like-minded peers (plus get a chance win a 1-year Maven subscription!)

Last but certainly not least, we hired two full-time Learning Guides to help keep students happy and support our growing community in 2021 and beyond.

If you're a Maven subscriber, odds are you've chatted with Frank or Branislav. They work tirelessly to make sure we can continue to scale without compromising the exceptional student support that we're known for, so pop in the chat and say hello!

✓ Game-changing product features

From day one we’ve challenged ourselves to build the best online learning experience on the planet, and 2021 brought us a few steps closer to that goal.

In Q1 we introduced our game-changing Guided Learning model, giving students the ability to create personalized, goal-oriented learning plans, access 1-on-1 coaching and live expert support (from actual humans), and track progress in real time.

We also introduced brand new activity tracking features and milestone badges, designed to help students stay engaged while developing effective learning habits.

By completing at least one lesson a day, students can now unlock special achievements for reaching key milestones and learning streaks:

Over the past year we also completely retooled our in-course skills assessments, adding new questions, detailed answer explanations, score breakdowns, and downloadable PDF reports (plus much more coming early 2022!):

Last but not least, we launched our first-ever Data Analyst Bootcamp in Fall 2021; a full-time experience designed for students looking to launch a career in analytics or Business Intelligence.

The bootcamp provided a hands-on and extremely immersive experience, featuring a 12-week curriculum consisting of self-paced learning, live instructor-led sessions, guest speakers, group & individual projects, career workshops, and a 100% job guarantee.

NOTE: We just announced a brand new part-time bootcamp, now open for enrollment!

✓ Course expansion & accreditation

Last year was huge for Maven instructors, who collectively published 10 new courses in 2021 covering Excel, MySQL, Tableau, Power BI, Machine Learning, and more:

• Advanced MySQL DBA

• Intro to Tableau Prep

• Microsoft Power BI Service (new for 2021)

• ML Part 2: Classification

• Tableau Desktop Certification

• Microsoft DA-100 Certification

• Thinking Like an Analyst

• ML Part 3: Regression

• Tableau Speed & Performance

• Advanced Excel Dashboard Design

We added two certification prep courses DA-100 & Tableau Desktop Specialist, continued our 4-part Machine Learning series, and expanded our Excel Specialist path with a new Advanced Dashboard Design course.

We were also thrilled to introduce Thinking Like an Analyst, a primer for aspiring BI professionals looking to build the foundation for a successful career in data. Co-authored by several of Maven's top instructors, this course is designed to introduce students to the world of analytics through proven frameworks and unique, hands-on case studies.

Now for all of you accounting professionals out there, I'm excited to share that we are now officially registered with NASBA as a CPE sponsor, which means we now offer 11 CPE-accredited courses (140+ hours), with many more on the way!

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, click here to learn about CPE.

As we head into 2022, we're aiming to raise the content bar yet again, with monthly course launches, new career resources, cross-platform case studies, and a brand new ssssspecialist path that many of you have been asking about for a very long time (hint hint).

Looking ahead to 2022 (and beyond)...

As always, our 2022 roadmap is full of audacious goals and ambitious projects.

While we'll continue to do what we do best — new courses, challenges, platform features, etc. — this year will also mark the beginning of a much bigger evolution of the Maven platform and brand.

Over the past few years we've helped thousands of students build job-ready data skills, build amazing project portfolios, and learn what it takes to get hired.

But what we haven't done is build a single, cohesive solution where analysts can learn, share, collaborate and network all in one place.

We're talking about the future of professional development; a "career launchpad" for the modern-day analyst

Imagine a place where you can learn new skills, showcase your work, collaborate with peers, and explore career opportunities while recruiters pitch to YOU...

Where the world's top companies come to upskill their teams, onboard new hires, and recruit proven, world-class analytics talent...

And where success isn't measured by certificates and badges, but by real, meaningful outcomes like landing a job, earning a promotion, or launching a new career.

THIS is what we're building at Maven Analytics, and we can't wait to make it a reality.

Until then, happy learning and cheers to a great year! 🤟